Shelley Jory
Above: Shelley Jory
Above: Shelley Jory
Above: Shelley Jory
Southampton’s Shelley Jory leads a fantasy double-life – from Monday to Friday she lives the girly dream running her bridal wear business, but at weekends she’s a powerboat racer.
We meet at Ocean Village, ahead of the start of the P1 race season (equivalent to F1 in motor racing). Shelley is the first woman to compete in the Evolution Class of P1. It is an outstanding achievement and all the more impressive when she reveals that five years ago she swam away from a terrible powerboat crash.
But Shelley laughs, quite literally, in the face of danger; her conversation is perpetually punctuated with infectious giggles.
Although being selected to compete in the P1 World Championship was a goal of hers, it has come around sooner than expected.
“I’ve been racing for 12 years now, always climbing up and up, and this year I was going to take a year out from racing to concentrate on other projects that I’d been doing like commentating and radio presenting which I really love,” explains Shelley.
“But then the American powerboat team Lucas Oil contacted me and said, ‘we’ve been watching you in Honda, would you like to do P1?’”
Team owner and throttleman Nigel Hook will be Shelley’s new race partner – a bit of a change after being part of an all-girl team for much of her racing career.
“It is still my ambition to have an all-girl team in P1, but Nigel has vast experience at this level of racing so I really need to go in with his expertise.”
Crash course in success
Shelley was born in Southampton in 1969 and brought up in Warsash. “My parents moved away, but I’ve moved back to Warsash. I’ve moved back to my roots. I’m truly Southampton born and bred.”
In 2006 Shelley was made Ambassador of Southampton. “I’m really proud of that role. I work here in Southampton, with my bridal shop, I play here, those waters out there are where I practise my powerboat racing, and I live here. Cut me in half and it probably says ‘I love Southampton’.”
Back in 1995 her then boyfriend, who was a keen powerboat racing spectator, wanted to get involved in racing; Shelley became his team manager and got him started in the sport before deciding she’d like to give it a go herself.
“It was purely a hobby at weekends. But my career just went upwards and upwards. The big break was my V24 race in which I had a really serious accident in the Solent in 2003. A lot of people thought that would be the end of me and I wouldn’t get back in a boat and carry on. I wrote the boat off and was trapped under water for three minutes, but escaped unharmed.
“I got back in a boat really quickly, just a month later when we finished rebuilding the boat and, remarkably, I then went on and won the three-hour endurance race on Lake Windermere. I was the first lady ever to win the endurance race, and that was in the
boat that I’d sunk to the bottom of
the Solent!
“Someone from local company Raymarine witnessed the crash and, seeing my determination to race, they became my sponsor and have sponsored me ever since.”
It was about a year later that her previous partner Libby came on board – “Libby started in 2005 and by the end of that year I’d made her a British Champion,” Shelley laughs. “We did a lot of training and preparation and it worked; we won the championship beating 17 teams of men. When we first started winning the men thought it was a bit fluky. But we were there every time battling through the same awful conditions that they faced. Sometimes it was absolutely disgusting out there and I felt as if I’d beaten up. We gained a huge amount of respect from them that year and we’ve kept that respect as well.”
Shelley also runs well-established bridal wear shop, Brides of Southampton.
“If I had to choose between my two lives, my sensible head would say the family business, but my Shelley head says I want to go and be a
powerboat racer.”
Awkward bedfellows
Her partner, Trevor Leigh, is in the powerboat industry, too, but rather awkwardly Trevor is crew chief for Honeypot.com who are in direct competition with Shelley.
“It’s a bit bizarre because when I’m home I’m writing emails and chatting on the phone to my team and sorting my team out and he’s sorting his team out!” Yet at the end of the night these two competitors have to get into bed together.
“At the races we’ll stay in the same room, but we’ll get up and go our separate ways. We won’t even eat together, we have to eat with our teams.” But Shelley assures me that it’s a great partnership because he understands the pressures and the passion.
Strong support also comes from her parents although her mother is very anxious about her racing.
“They’re always there watching me, but they’re very aware of the dangers. I don’t know what my mum’s going to say when she sees the boat I’m in now! I’ve gone from 70mph to 120mph, that’s a big jump on water, and from 225hp to 1400hp!” She sounds animated, continuing, “P1 is a massive adventure to me, like a dream come true, the venues are fantastic and there is all the spectacle as well. The racing is, obviously, the main part of it, but they have hospitality, fashion shows, parties... For that one weekend you’re a mini star racer… And then on Monday morning you go back to your real life.”
The P1 World Championship
The Powerboat P1 World Championship is an off-shore endurance racing series for two classes of powerboat, SuperSport and Evolution, and is comparable to motorsport’s Formula One. The 2008 race calendar comprises 14 races around the world from Italy to Bahrain.
May 9-11: San Benedetto del
Tronto, Italy
May 23-25: Marseille, France
June 6-8: Valletta, Malta
July 11-13: Hammamet, Tunisia
September 12-14: Vigo, Spain
September 26-28: Portimao, Portugal
October 23-25: Bahrain, Middle East
Shelley’s favourite Hampshire haunts
• Banana Wharf, Ocean Village: I love to sit there, eat lunch and look out over the marina.
• Rising Sun, Warsash: My local pub where I tend to hang out.
• Alum Bay, Isle of Wight: My perfect day is when Trevor and I get a day off together and take our pleasure boat to Alum Bay with a picnic, read the newspapers and lie in the sun.
• New Forest: I love the New Forest because I went to boarding school there.
For more information visit:
www.powerboat1.com
www.bridesofsouthampton.com
www.shelleyjory.com
To read the full interview with Shelley Jory, get your copy of June's Hampshire Life.